


In Nothing We Trust

by Destina



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early Work, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-12-01
Updated: 2000-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4160343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Krycek faces the truth of what he sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Nothing We Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during "Requiem", the seventh season finale. Written sometime around 2000 and posted to AO3 in June 2015.

Krycek stepped into the shower, tilting his head back, allowing the warm rain to cascade across his body. His ribs showed clearly through his too-pale skin; one glance in the mirror had confirmed it, before he lost his courage and looked away. It had been easier in the catacombs of the prison, showering in front of Marita, who might as well have been a ghost. She had no value to him anymore. Nothing did.

The soap smelled strongly of too much perfume, but he ran it across his skin, reveling in the sensuous glide of freedom. It was against his instructions, of course. No checking in to the hotel; it would compromise his mission if he were seen by anyone who might connect him with the Project. He'd hardly been surprised to see Mulder and Scully check in, and following them had given him a clear trail. Unfortunately, it was a trail into nothing, which led nowhere.

Also not surprising. How many times had they been close, only to be subverted or undermined by his efforts? He grinned with a measure of self-satisfaction. Once upon a time, no one had been better at covering up, obfuscating, making truth into lies and lies into truth. He hated to think that he might have lost his touch, but time in prison did things to a man. Terrible, taxing things.

His hand started to shake. He released the soap into the dish along with a trail of suds, staring as they ran down the drain.

The bathroom was cold. Krycek reached up, pushed the window over the shower shut with one hand. Gooseflesh appeared over his bare, wet arm and he shivered. The impulse to clutch his body for warmth, to fold his arms around his torso, was strong. Of course, it wasn't an option. Not for many years. He wiped a hand across his face to clear away the water and shoved the curtain back, stepping out of the shower.

Mulder had found some new purpose in life, in work. Marita couldn't resist filling Krycek in on every detail, and she did it with a sort of grim joy that made him wonder how much she really knew, both about the past and the present. It also made him curious to see for himself. Mulder might be a self-righteous prick, but he couldn't help but feel a bit proprietary about the man. It came from saving him too often, from wanting him too much, from using him too hard.

In more ways than one.

With a resolute sigh, Krycek finished shaving, running the razor across the now-smooth skin of his chin, and followed the blade with his fingers, rubbing away the burn. He was starting to feel human again. Too many months with vermin and filth and venereal disease - it wasn't exactly easy to beat the shit out of a huge Turk when one of his arms was gone. He couldn't quite recall the last time he'd had a shower, much less warm water to soothe the bruises and aches on and in his body, and it was too good.

He couldn't afford to get used to it. Nothing worthwhile could last; he would probably be dead in a few days, and time had become his only commodity, the only thing of value he could still manipulate. Always too greedy. He had always wanted too much, had always thought he was clever enough to keep ahead of the game and get what he needed to stay afloat.

Selling the most classified tape file of the century? No problem. Just had to find the most discreet buyer in history. He should have known that anyone able to appreciate the value of his merchandise would want to re-route the information. It hadn't been his finest moment. And seeing the cigarette-sucking bastard who'd once been his mentor gloat over his imprisonment had been just about all he could take. In fact, he harbored illusions that it might break him, might just strip away all his essential truths and leave him with nothing.

But as usual, facing up to his mistakes made him stronger, made him capable of taking the assignment he was offered. It gave him clarity of purpose; it focused his vision.

There were things he needed, and he couldn't get them locked up somewhere in the bowels of a Pentagon secure facility, screaming his head off, waiting to die. He had one chance and he was going to take it.

Still, there was no accounting for the impulse that led him to Mulder's window earlier that night. Nothing could really explain his need to see the reality of it, to observe and absorb and take a report he would never send back to anyone, anywhere. Just a little file he would make in his own mind, composed of images and sounds and the smell of wet pine, the crunch of leaves beneath his boots.

Agony, pure and simple. His need for self-torture was defined by the ache in his heart, the solid presence of anger hovering raw and ready in the back of his brain. He listened to Mulder's solicitous platitudes, watched him wrap his arms around Scully, thought about breaking down the door and killing them both where they were, sprawled across the bed, wrapped up in one another. It took him several minutes to remember there was a better way, and he was the master of that method.

With one hand he clutched the stump of his arm, wrapping his fingers around his shoulder with an instinctive need he could not have put into words, as Mulder pulled the comforter closer around Scully, kissing her tenderly. There were wounds that could not be justified, images that would never be exorcised, and those moments insinuated themselves into his consciousness, overlaying the truth of the now with the wistful longing of the past.

So many memories. Mulder, head thrown back against the door, calling his name as Krycek's mouth moved over the man's cock, comforting him, bringing him into oblivion, setting the stage for the next betrayal. Mulder, sprawled across a bed with his ass in the air, growling into a pillow while he was made to understand certain basic facts about himself he'd apparently overlooked. Mulder, eyes wide and sensual, going down on him as he crossed the threshold into the most mind-blowing orgasm of his life.

Mulder, not even close to breaking, kissing him, devouring his mouth in that rathole of a Siberian prison, taking what he wanted and leaving Krycek wishing he had more time to give it.

Angrily, he shook his head to clear it, staring in amazement as the formerly platonic partners moved into a dance of touch and retreat, explore and withdraw. He really thought they might be past it by now, but there was reverence in each caress. Too much to be brand new, too tentative to be routine.

There was another way. One lure Mulder could not resist, and if he dragged Scully down with him, no one would care, least of all the people who had hounded them from the very beginning. All he had to do was persuade Marita to help him, and that wouldn't be difficult. She was a smart girl. She would see the inevitable. It was a perfect trap, already sprung. It didn't matter anymore if they found the ship; all that mattered was that Mulder find it, and understand what he had come across when he did. Mankind wouldn't survive the annihilation to come, and Mulder wouldn't be broken by trivial details, not after what he'd seen, what he'd done.

It would take something more substantial. Something Mulder could not walk away from, something tangible. Something Krycek suddenly had the opportunity to provide. Fate had handed him an opportunity once again...

He snapped back into the relative warmth of the bathroom and realized he was still looking in the mirror, seeing the sunken hollows of his eyes, the bleak nothingness at the core of them. He should be able to feel something, but there wasn't much left to feel. What had he wanted, anyway? A secure future. A place in the order of things. A warm body beneath him, whispered words of false comfort in the dark, shadings of gray to overlay the danger.

Wanting too much had been his downfall. He would not need. He would not serve. He would not *want*.

Carelessly, he slung a towel around his waist and opened the bathroom door, trailing clouds of steam behind him. He groped for the phone in his jacket, dialing the only Bureau number he was still sure to remember, and listened for an answer.

"Skinner."

"Listen carefully. I'm only going to say this once." He smiled, feeling the rush of tension leaving him, the ache in his gut sighing away.

Nothing so perfect should ever be so simple. Some people never learned the simplest lessons. Krycek had learned them all, and the same core truth was embedded inside each and every one - survival.

It shouldn't take much to sell them on the truth. After all, they wanted to believe.


End file.
